Second Thoughts
by LoyaulteMeLie
Summary: A summary of some of the events of 'Affliction' and 'Divergence' from the POVs of those involved.
1. Chapter 1: Tucker

**Star Trek and all its intellectual property is owned by Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no profit made.**

 **This story was posted elsewhere some years ago, so it's not 'new', but I've never posted it here. So just in case anyone might enjoy it...**

 **Beta'd by Distracted, to whom I am indebted.**

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Well, so this was 'home' now. _  
_

Trip placed his duffle on the bunk and looked about him, wishing he could summon up more interest.

It was a mite bigger than his old place, though built along the same lines. A mite more luxurious, perhaps; here and there aesthetics had been allowed to influence things along with functionality. Some of the errors that had plagued _Enterprise_ would probably have been addressed. At a guess, Captain Hernandez wouldn't have to duck her head every time she walked around her ready room like Jon had to. That said, the _Columbia_ 's captain was on the petite side compared to Jonathan Archer's strapping best-part-of-two-meters height. She likely wouldn't have had any problem anyway.

The memory of the day Jon had realized that he'd have to spend his entire posting carefully navigating his way round his own ready room to avoid getting his head bashed on any of the inconveniently low bulkheads gave Trip a surprisingly deep pang. The cap'n had used some pretty strong language about it, and his report to Starfleet probably hadn't been particularly tactful either.

Anyway, time to unpack and get settled in. Then he could report to Engineering and get a feel for the engines and meet his new crew before he reported to his new captain. He was looking forward to the challenge.

Yeah. He was. Really, he was.

The engines – no problem. He'd read up on all the modifications, he'd soon have them singing just like the ones on … well, that was irrelevant now.

And the crew. The crew, who didn't know him personally but would have gleaned from the infallible Starfleet grapevine that he'd left his own ship for personal reasons. Left a ship where he belonged, where his crew adored him and he had the engines eating out of his hand, in order to step onto the top rung of their chain of command – right onto the fingers of whoever would normally have expected at least a chance to apply for the vacant place. Sheesh, wasn't he going to be the popular guy for a while.

His face hardened a little. His reasons were none of their business. As for his second, they'd have to see how it worked out. He was prepared to extend a little leeway until they achieved a decent working relationship, but he wasn't going to take any crap. The captain had jumped at getting him because of his experience, and her senior officers were her decision. He'd earned his place. He was keeping it.

 _You just left your real place behind._ A traitorous voice whispered in the back of his mind.

 _Shut the hell up._ He opened his duffle. It was pretty crammed. A few of his bulkier belongings had been sent across by transporter; this was just his clothes and one or two other bits and pieces. He'd rammed them in anyhow, desperate to get his closet cleared and the packing done.

The shirts … the shirts had gone in last, with some vague idea of making them less crumpled that way. He picked out the top one. Even he thought it was a bit blinding, but he'd bought it anyway, mainly to rile Malcolm who had spent about half an hour listing its demerits. At a guess, it would be a while before anyone around here had anything to say about his shirts. At least to his face. They'd probably say plenty behind his back.

 _Not much point remembering that now,_ whispered the voice. _You didn't give a damn for the stiff little Brit losing his only friend when you put your transfer request in._

What the hell. Malcolm was a grown man. He knew what the situation was; he hadn't said a word of blame, hadn't made any effort to dissuade him. He'd shaken hands as they parted, uttered the conventional words and hoped their paths would cross again soon. He'd even managed a smile. Yep, that sort of crooked smile he usually came out with when he was trying to get away with some bull about how 'fine' he was.

 _You did a real great job there, Commander Tucker. You deliberately pulled his defenses down and now you've left him alone. But he'll be 'fine'. Of course he will. Yeah._

He hung the shirts in the closet, not even bothering to straighten them on the hangers. He could hear the dry British voice commenting behind his shoulder: 'It's hardly as if their being creased is going to matter. Nobody would dare look close enough to notice.'

And as if the thought of Malcolm wasn't bad enough, he couldn't stop seeing Jon's face either.

Being posted together had been their dream. The trust between them had been unbreakable. Even events like that disaster with the Cogenitor hadn't succeeded in shattering it; sure, it had taken damage – pretty severe damage, if he was honest with himself – but over time it had begun to heal. As the ship's captain Jon had to shoulder the responsibility for some of what had happened, at least in his own eyes; had to bear some of the atrocious guilt. It couldn't be expected that their relationship wouldn't be affected by something that traumatic, but slowly the wounds had started to knit.

And then the chance at heading a newer ship's engineering section had come along, and he'd jumped at it like a starving tiger. 'At a gazelle,' he thought with a wry grimace. For that was how it looked. He knew it did. He'd had far, far too much experience at reading Jon's face to be fooled. The shock in it had only been exceeded by the hurt. After that, every word had rung as hollow as a drum. Jon had tried to understand, because that's what friends do; but he hadn't. He hadn't understood at all. He couldn't.

Travis. Travis hadn't understood either. His smile had been almost as fake as Malcolm's. The guy had done his best, but the big infectious grin had been reduced to a travesty. _Wonder how many of those great big cheesy grins you're gonna see around here._

Hoshi… Hosh' had been crying, though she'd put more cosmetics on than usual in a gallant effort to hide it. She'd mustered up a smile that crumpled in the middle, and thrown her arms around him at parting. So had half the people in Engineering, come to think of it. Anna had turned up on that last morning looking like she'd cried half the night. Hell, it wasn't till you left somewhere that you finally found out how much you belonged there.

Phlox. The Denobulan had taken his farewells with a face that was so sorrowful it looked simply unnerving. He'd found a few positive things to say about new challenges and new faces, but the whole thing had sounded like just another sample of the doc's incurable habit of trying to find a bright side to even the most calamitous situation.

And they hadn't understood why he was leaving. Why he had to leave.

Because a gorgeous Vulcan who hardly came up to his chin had gotten hold of his heart and torn it into tiny aching pieces. Because he couldn't stand it anymore, getting up every morning and seeing her and talking to her and listening to her and knowing that she didn't feel the same way about him as he did about her.

Because if he couldn't have her, the next best thing he could think of was to save himself that daily torture and put space between them. Light years' worth of space, so that sooner or later the memories would fade and the pain would dull somehow. And that was the only hope he had to cling on to, because this wasn't going to go away. His heart was never going to mend. He'd just have to learn how to live with the grief and the anger and the helpless sense of failure. _Columbia_ wasn't a challenge. She was a _refuge_ – a port found too late in a storm that had sunk him with all hands.

He sat down on the bunk.

He'd given up the ship where he belonged in exchange for one where he would never be much other than an interloper. He'd given up on his friends. He'd given up on his crew. Worst of all, he'd given up on the one woman who meant everything to him.

She didn't want him. As far as she was concerned, he was an _experiment._ All that passion, all that rapture – an _'experiment.'_

He put his head in his hands and groaned. He didn't want to believe that she had any idea of how that word had lodged in his heart and eaten it from the inside out. How he'd tried vainly to salve the agony by calling her every name he could think of with the prefix 'heartless Vulcan', not meaning a word of any of them. But if he had used words he didn't mean in the frantic search for an escape route, it was dawning on him now that she could have done the same. And slowly the suspicion was growing on him that that was just what she had done. And he'd swallowed it – hook, line and sinker.

Emotions – anathema to any Vulcan. And if there was anything that a relationship with a human was going to abound in (especially if he had anything to do with it), 'emotion' was going to be pretty damn near the top of the list. She would suddenly have had a whole load of them dumped on her. And if he knew her, as he was beginning to suspect he did, better than she knew herself, she'd have instinctively pushed them away. And him with them – collateral damage in a reflex damage limitation exercise. Vulcans were so used to keeping their emotions penned up and crushed down that they just didn't know how to handle them when they got loose, how to think through the consequences of the first course of action to suggest itself. In effect, whether she'd admit it even to herself or not, she'd _panicked._

Aw, this was just wishful thinking. Maybe he was panicking a bit himself, trying to invent excuses for not seizing the chance he'd been given to rescue this beauty of a ship from a bunch of incompetent deskbound warp-specialists who'd take the best part of another six months to get her ready if they were left to their own devices. He'd promised himself he'd do it in a _week._ And he didn't care if his new crew didn't like his history or the way he worked or the way he wanted the engines calibrated or the way he brushed his hair or, come to think of it, any damned thing about him. They were just going to have to put up with him. He'd promised his new cap'n … his new _captain_ … that he was going to deliver her ship, and he was going to do it no matter what.

And in the meantime, a certain Vulcan could just relax and forget about him. If she could. Which a small part of him (okay, a very _large_ part of him) very much hoped she couldn't. Because in between doing whatever he had to in order to fulfill his part of the bargain with the _Columbia_ 's commanding officer, he sure as hell wasn't going to forget about her.

He heaved a sigh. It wasn't the sort of sound that might have been expected of a man granted the opportunity of a lifetime. It pretty well matched the look he cast around the cabin where he sat. It wasn't 'home'.

He was beginning to suspect that it never would be.

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	2. Chapter 2: T'Pol

The atmosphere on _Enterprise_ 's bridge was subdued as they left space dock. The final sweeps of the manoeuvring cameras as the docking clamps were released brought the sleek side of _Columbia_ across the viewscreen. It was wholly possible that Trip was aboard the vessel, deep in the engineering section, too happily absorbed in the task of getting his new ship up and running to even register the fact that his old was leaving. The looks that the bridge officers cast the pristine craft carried at least as much sadness as admiration.

It was a relief when the last gleam of silver vanished from view.

Science Officer T'Pol sat at her station, monitoring the readouts. She also took the opportunity to monitor the expressions of her fellow crew-members, and was not reassured by what she saw.

Captain Archer was seated in his chair. His expression was grim. It seemed a very long time ago that he'd sat there with an expression of barely contained eagerness as they set out for the first time on their mission of exploration; the years, and more particularly the Expanse, had taught him hard lessons. The marks of those lessons were still on his face. Of course, the kidnapping of Dr Phlox was hardly likely to make him look happy, and there was a hard resolve on his face that boded ill for the culprits if and when the ship caught up with them – a Rigelian freighter would not be able to outrun an NX-class starship. But she hadn't missed the way his eyes followed the last glimpse of _Columbia_. He and Commander Tucker had been friends long before the first rivet of _Enterprise_ 's superstructure had been set. Their friendship had been one of the central threads of which life on board ship had been woven, and now it was plucked out of the weft. Life on _Enterprise_ would be very different from now on, from the captain's point of view.

Ensign Sato was going through the settings for the translator in what seemed a fairly rudimentary fashion. From the faint movement of her lips she was probably renewing her acquaintance with Rigelian dialects – it was wholly possible that her services would be needed when the kidnappers were overtaken. It was to be hoped that she was studying terms that combined firmness with diplomacy – expressions like 'Hand our doctor back or you'll get a torpedo right where the sun doesn't shine' (to borrow an idiom the Vulcan had once heard Lieutenant Reed employ) needed to be softened appropriately in order to obtain the required response with the minimum amount of unpleasantness. That firmness would be required there was no doubt, but with the captain in his present mood the use of diplomacy to go with it was worryingly uncertain. Ensign Sato could probably be relied upon to moderate the more belligerent demands. Even if she too had watched the last gleam of _Columbia_ 's hull disappear from the screen and bitten down hard on a bottom lip that threatened to quiver.

Ensign Mayweather was at the helm as always. He was fully alert, his gaze watchful as the ship under his control made its departure from dock. He had seemed more absorbed in his duties than interested in the immobile silver presence of their sister ship being prepared for its test flights, but a close observer would have noticed there was none of the usual sparkle in his eyes. The slope of his powerful shoulders spoke eloquently of a dejection he shared with almost the whole of the remainder of the crew.

 _Almost_. Her inner Vulcan reminded her firmly. 'Despair' was an emotion. So was 'loneliness'. So was 'guilt'. So was 'regret'. As for 'missing him'...

...that didn't qualify as anything other than _something no self-respecting Vulcan ought to think._

Her gaze traveled finally across the bridge to the tactical station directly opposite her. _Missing him_ would definitely apply to Lieutenant Reed; however unlikely such a development would have appeared in the early days of the ship's voyages, the two men had forged an extremely close friendship. There was no doubt that the lieutenant would not be happy that Commander Tucker had decided to leave. However, he had proven on many occasions that he was capable of maintaining a professional attitude no matter what his personal feelings might be, and he would be a vital member of the team in this mission, especially once they'd caught up with the freighter and the situation might call for the threat of weapons.

In usual circumstances, a pursuit that might easily end in a confrontation and the use of 'persuasive force' would have put an expression of intense eagerness on the Englishman's face, but for one split second, when he clearly believed himself to be unobserved, his look was not one of eagerness at all, but one of something unnervingly like actual physical anguish.

T'Pol blinked. When her eyes opened again the expression had disappeared from the lieutenant's face as though she had imagined it, to be replaced by the impassive mask of the early days. Although he did not look at her, his records mentioned that he had acute peripheral vision, and it was almost certain that he had realised that she was staring at him.

On one occasion during the voyage she had overheard part of a conversation between two crewmembers in which one made the scurrilous suggestion that the friendship between the two men was in fact rather deeper than regulations permitted. The scrap she had heard was insufficient to constitute grounds for action, and it appeared to have been an attempt at humor, however distasteful. A certain amount of gossip was inevitable in any situation where humans were confined for months on end, and she had eventually decided to ignore it. She did not believe that there was any truth in the allegation, nor that either of the officers would behave in so unprofessional a manner. Now, however – unless she had imagined that glimpse into a personal hell – she was forced to wonder if there might have been some truth in it, at least on Lieutenant Reed's side. She had the best of reasons to know that Commander Tucker was sexually inclined towards women, but the other man was more reticent by far. Certainly he was in the grip of some extremely strong and unpleasant emotion, however hard he was trying to hide it.

Without warning, a tide of blind jealousy washed over her.

 _Mine!_

Her hands clenched on the console. She imagined herself leaping across the bridge, launching into the attack. During their weekly self-defense practice sessions she sometimes pressed him hard, using various Vulcan techniques against which he had not trained. She still had some in reserve, kept mainly because they could cause a great deal of damage. He would not stand a chance ...

 _Mine! MINE!_

She had to leave the bridge or she would be the one acting in an unprofessional manner. And at that present moment, she could not give any guarantees that Lieutenant Reed would survive it.

An excuse was not hard to come by. Lieutenant Kelby was now acting head of Engineering; an extremely competent individual, certainly, but lacking in Commander Tucker's sheer instinctive genius. It would not occasion any surprise that she should think it wise to pay a visit to the department just to ensure that everything was proceeding as it should. The ship would need to have its engines delivering their best performance if the pursuit was to be successful.

Captain Archer acceded to her request with an absent nod. Doubtless he would be glad for her to cast an unobtrusive look over the department that – however funereal the atmosphere would be – would still be doing its best to be a credit to its departed chief. He'd trained them to be the best, after all; he'd harassed them and encouraged them and bawled them out when they deserved it, and made no secret of the fact that he was prouder of them than any father could possibly have been. Kelby would have nothing to complain of except perhaps the fact that, to employ another human idiom, he had 'a hell of a pair of shoes to step into.'

The Vulcan stepped into the turbo-lift and saw the doors hiss shut with relief. Her whole body was shaking with adrenaline. _Mine! Mine!_

The doors hissed open again at the deck she needed. The air was full of the scent of sandalwood, or was that just her memory playing tricks? Even the deck plating remembered his footsteps. Every square meter of the reactor's polished surface had been subject to his searching gaze. His kingdom. His territory.

She fled. Anywhere would do. _Mine! Mine!_ But not hers any more. She'd pushed him away. She'd been criminally complacent, not believing that he would actually make the break; in her heart of hearts she'd believed they were joined whether they liked it or not, that eventually some kind of tolerable truce could be achieved in which they could have each other's company in a safe, civilized, platonic friendship that would not involve all those unbearable emotions that sex with him had unleashed.

She hadn't understood him at all. She'd thought that if she treated him like a Vulcan he would behave like a Vulcan. Now she understood too late that for a human as passionate as Trip Tucker, that was equivalent to a slow and agonizing death. She could not bear his absence – the absence of which she was the direct and only cause. She knew how he must be feeling, because she was feeling the same. The bond between them had not broken; she knew that, because of this white-hot pain through it.

 _Think logically._ She couldn't. That glimpse of the pain and fear in Lieutenant Reed's eyes had been too much like her own; it had gone through her defenses like a lirpa blade. _Meditate._ She couldn't. She was on duty. She was supposed to be checking on Lieutenant Kelby. Kelby, the usurper. Occupying _his_ place. Touching _his_ control panels, giving orders to _his_ crew. She hated Kelby almost as much as she hated Reed.

 _Trellium damage_. She leaned against the wall, panting. She would never get back the control she'd willfully squandered. She was a danger to the ship, a danger to the mission.

Her flight had taken her to the last place she should have come. _His_ quarters. Surely if she pressed the chime a lazy warm voice with that distinctive Southern accent would answer; surely the door would hiss open, and he would be there, smiling that smile...

 _Never again_.

She leaned against the wall, looking at the access code buttons. They still smelled faintly of sandalwood.

She should not hate Lieutenant Reed. She, at least, had something of _him_ to remember. He had offered her everything, and she had hurled it in his face.

Despair brought its own calm. She could cope now. They had to find Dr Phlox. It would take all of the crew at their best, and she would have her part to play.

Her fingers touched the buttons gently, tracing the code _his_ fingers must have entered so often.

 _Never again._

She walked back to the turbo-lift. Crewmen who passed her would mistake her expression for calm. It is easy to be calm when one has lost everything.

Everything.

 _Never again._


	3. Chapter 3: Reed

If Lieutenant Malcolm Reed had still been in the habit of praying, he would have been on his knees beside the Tactical Station beseeching God to deliver him from what he was about to do.

Unfortunately, he wasn't. So launching himself into supplication of a God who hadn't had a civil word from him for the past ten years (and probably nothing much for several before that, if the truth were told) seemed unlikely to produce much by way of concrete results.

He sat still, feeling as though the _Enterprise_ were one huge duranium tumbrel bearing him steadily to Madame la Guillotine. In some ways, he could have borne it better if nothing worse had awaited him than the swift lethal kiss of a blade on the back of his neck. That, at least, would have been over quickly. He could remember quite vividly how he'd felt on the occasion when he and the captain had been saved at the last minute from death by hanging; the prospect of imminent death had been terrifying – more so than he'd let on to Captain Archer, though it hadn't been so much the fact of extinction he feared as the thought that their captors might bungle it and instead of a swift end with a snapped neck he'd be left to the kicking torment of strangulation. Nevertheless, he'd found from somewhere the courage to face it with the dignity that his Reed forebears would have expected.

The captain had tried at the last minute to save him, and although he hadn't succeeded the attempt was something for which he'd always been grateful. He was grateful to Jonathan Archer on many levels, not least of which was that he'd accepted him as his tactical officer on _Enterprise_ , and therefore given him an escape from his murky past in Section 31. The past that he'd hoped and believed had been left far behind him ...

... until now.

He stared miserably at Archer sitting in frowning silence in the command chair, the man whom he'd once accused of laxity in personnel matters (oh, the Fates must have choked on their laughter that day!), who had accepted him and trusted him and befriended him. That easy command style he'd at first deplored had begun, slowly and stealthily, to grow on him. _Enterprise_ , her crew and her captain had come to feel like the nearest thing to a loving home and family he'd ever really had. And now he was going to betray them all on the orders of a man he wouldn't trust as far as he could spit him.

And Trip was gone – Commander Charles 'Trip' Tucker, whom he'd started off by dismissing as a cocky, flippant Yank, all mouth and attitude. It had taken the time when they'd been stranded together in Shuttlepod One believing their deaths were imminent to make him realise how much he'd come to trust and respect the Southerner and value his friendship. Trip had been the 'friend that sticketh closer than a brother'; in all his career he'd never so much as contemplated the horror of deliberately disobeying the direct order of a superior officer, but rules, regulations and even the Reed family honour had been hurled to the stellar winds when Trip had tried to sacrifice himself in order that his junior officer should stand a better chance of being rescued alive. The blazing exchange that followed that piece of rank insubordination had been one of the lightning bolts of a storm that had fundamentally changed their relationship for good. Half asleep in the blessed peace and warmth of sickbay after their eventual rescue, he'd finally articulated his feelings to Trip himself, secure in the knowledge that the commander was safely unconscious and unable to hear them; he'd called him _my friend._ A title that had been in precious short supply in Malcolm Reed's life hitherto, and which he awarded with no small struggle against the cold habits of distance and distrust that had been instilled in him for as long as he could remember.

Trip. Gone. He could hardly believe it even now. It had been almost more than he could bear, to sit mute and watch the _Columbia_ slip silently out of view, knowing that his best friend was now aboard her, in the service of another captain and wearing the alien badge on his left sleeve. He took what comfort he could from the conviction that the mask he'd learned to keep in place over his feelings had stayed in place long enough to see Trip off the _Enterprise_ without crumbling. There were words one used in these situations, and he'd used every one of them like a ham actor mouthing lines in an empty theatre, listening to the echoes mocking him.

In the privacy of his quarters he'd gone through the Starfleet database on _Columbia_ 's head of security like a sniffer dog searching for contraband, desperate for reassurance that the man was competent. The results should have consoled him insofar as consolation was possible, but the habit of protecting his brother officer with his _own_ watchful care was so deeply ingrained that he'd hardly have been able to look on with a quiet mind even if Tucker had left the ship just to take up an armchair post in Engineering R&D. Captain Hernandez certainly knew how to pick her staff (she'd been prompt enough to snap up the offer of the best chief engineer in the fleet!) and Lieutenant Lyons was an experienced security officer who came with a list of qualifications and recommendations that was probably longer than his own. Nevertheless, Lyons didn't _know_ Trip, hadn't fished him out of trouble and got drunk with him and mocked his hideous taste in shirts and kept his secrets and worked on projects with him and faced death with him and been tied up half-naked in a cellar with him and eaten in the mess hall with him and relied absolutely on him and bickered about movie night with him and faced the Expanse with him and argued with him on an almost daily basis about extra power for the armoury and ...

 _Bloody hell. Bloody, sodding hell._

 _Tucker, you stupid bastard. You poor, desperate, deluded git. You think you're going to leave your pain behind when you leave her behind. Well it won't work, mate. Didn't you learn anything from listening to me pouring out my pathetic farewell letters in the shuttle that time? You take your heart with you, wherever you go, and distance doesn't mend it._

It was a comfort of sorts from his own point of view that when the shit hit the fan on this mission Trip would be far away from the resultant mess. Doubtless he'd get to hear about it – the Starfleet grapevine would see to that – but at least he'd be at a great enough remove to be unable to dive in, in his usual impulsive fashion, and get himself involved and in danger of collateral damage. If he'd still been aboard _Enterprise_ Trip would never have believed that his friend would be capable of treason, would have argued and defended him and risked earning himself a share of the captain's entirely justifiable wrath. Archer was no longer the 'soft touch' that he'd been when they first set out. He wouldn't spare sympathy for a proven traitor.

 _Proven traitor._ It was all he could do not to groan aloud at the thought of it. Court-martial. Dismissal from _Enterprise_. Disgrace. His captain's disgust, his friends' shocked faces. Everything he'd fought so hard for, lost and gone.

The Section would still be there. They could always find a niche for a traitor. He'd be particularly useful to them now that he had nowhere else to go and nothing to care for. Harris at least would know that he'd kept the faith, for what that was worth when he'd betrayed the ship he'd grown to love. Not that that would weigh in the scales; his old paymaster wasn't interested in fidelity, only in usefulness.

He glanced at the captain again, at the man he'd come to regard with more affection and respect than he'd ever felt for his own father. Stuart Reed had never made any secret of the fact that his only son was a bitter disappointment to him. His failure to follow in the family tradition of service in the Royal Navy had only set the seal on the corrosive contempt in which he'd been held since the day he'd been born, sickly and underweight and allergy-prone. He'd earned more praise and approbation from Jonathan Archer in the past few years than he'd received in his entire life before that. And now he was going to have to look the man in the eyes and lie.

He had no right to feel too picky about lying. Inventing plausible falsehoods had once or twice been the only skill that had kept him alive back when he was in Section 31. He'd even been perversely proud of his own dexterity in it – a pride that now came back to haunt him as he realised that this time it would desert him utterly. Facing Archer, he wouldn't be able to think straight, wouldn't be able to come up with facile excuses that the captain would buy. The man knew him too well, trusted him too completely. The blow, when it came, would be shattering.

Just for an instant, the mask slipped. His face twisted with agony. _Traitor. I trusted you, Malcolm._ He could hear the words already, feel the white-hot anger and contempt that would slash straight into the unhealed core of him. His father's pitiless assessment of him confirmed and amplified once and for all by a man against whom he had lowered all his painstakingly constructed defences.

 _Not here, for God's sake, you bloody fool!_ Here on the bridge, with T'Pol directly opposite him and almost as notoriously observant as he was himself, was the very last place he should allow his guard to drop. He straightened his expression with an almost superhuman effort. He had to keep up the charade for as long as it took. Perhaps somehow he'd be able to pick a safe path through the minefield that awaited him, though this time if his luck ran out the steel would go through far more than his leg and there'd be no question of his not being ejected into space, anchored not to a piece of hull plating but to the shame that would be the epitaph for his career.

He hardly noticed the science officer's sudden movement or heard the brief exchange in which she asked permission to visit Engineering. Lieutenant Kelby – though by virtue of Trip's departure, he'd have been promoted to A _cting Commander_ Kelby, as the head of the section – lacked Trip's experience. It would probably be just as well for someone to keep an eye on him. He'd have offered to do it himself, but T'Pol knew as much as he did about warp technology, if not more, and her presence would be less likely to come across as an indication of a lack of trust. He didn't know Kelby all that well, but he knew a tough situation when he saw one, and stepping into Trip's shoes was going to be one hell of a challenge for him. The thought crossed his mind with the bitterest shadow of humour that he'd probably never get the chance to find out what kind of an opponent Kelby would make when the next face-off over extra power for the armoury was required. That would be Bernhard's job. _Acting Lieutenant Muller._ He'd do a good job of protecting the ship. He was a good man and a damned good officer. And at least he had no hidden flaws; poacher turned gamekeeper, Malcolm had turned over each and every stone that existed in his subordinates' histories before entrusting them with responsibility under him.

Habit is both a curse and a blessing. Habit had given him the mask he had to wear now, at least until it was torn from his face. He knew that anyone looking at him would see nothing more than his customary cool professionalism rather than the lie that his whole career on _Enterprise_ had been built on. It was only right that it should be finally uncovered. He'd been a fool to make himself believe that the honourable service he'd so badly wanted to give could possibly be based on a foundation of deceit. He himself had built the trap that was about to close on him.

 _'Your sins will find you out.'_ **  
**


	4. Chapter 4: Sato

It was sheer coincidence that Hoshi looked into the dessert cabinet the night before the crisis happened.

She hadn't intended to get anything sweet, just a milky drink to help her sleep; and it had been just an idle sidelong glance as she passed that did the damage.

There was one piece of pie left, all on its own.

Pecan pie.

She made her way to a table in a corner, walking a little uncertainly because she was suddenly blind with tears. Luckily there was hardly anyone in the mess hall at that hour, and nobody that she knew well. She couldn't have borne to be subjected to questioning right now, so she sat down, turned her back on the room and began to sip tentatively at the hot milk dusted with cinnamon. She was definitely going to make inroads into her chocolate stash this evening. She couldn't remember an occasion when she'd needed some kind of comfort food more desperately.

"You okay, Hoshi?"

Travis. He hadn't been here when she arrived so he must have been close behind her. His kind, familiar face was clouded with concern.

"I guess so." She whisked a Kleenex from her pocket, wiped her eyes and blew her nose. "I just saw the pie."

"The pie...?" He glanced at the cabinet in surprise. The single plate was still there. Even from here it was obvious enough what was on it. "Oh. _That_ pie." He put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Could you use some company?" he asked a little diffidently.

"Sure. As long as you don't mind if I don't come up with a lot of sparkling conversation. Tonight, I'm just not in the mood."

"I can go with that." He sat down and sighed. He had a bowl of hot soup and a roll, but showed little sign of his usual robust appetite as he gazed at both without touching either. "It's sure going to be different from now on."

"You can say that again." She stared at the window. It was empty now, but earlier the scene outside it had been dominated by the ordered bustle of Spacedock, and lying in the construction bay at its heart the magnificent new ship _Columbia_ , _Enterprise's_ first sister in the NX class. They'd returned to Earth for the scheduled launch, though unexpected delays in getting the craft ready for her trial flight meant that they'd had to leave again without ceremoniously accompanying the new vessel out of the yards.

But nobody on board had dreamed that when _Columbia_ finally set out on her maiden voyage she would be carrying with her the _Enterprise_ 's chief engineer, who had put in a transfer request in absolute secrecy and sprung it on his fellow crewmen with such short notice that they'd hardly had time to organize a farewell party before he was gone. That had been this afternoon. The festive air that everyone had struggled to infuse into the occasion had been as real as a Halloween mask.

"It was more like a wake than a farewell party." Travis had followed her train of thought with uncanny accuracy.

Hoshi blew her nose again, ferociously this time. "He shouldn't _be_ back there. This is all a mistake."

Her companion said nothing, but his wry mouth spoke volumes. He picked up his spoon and started stirring the soup listlessly.

After a moment she picked up her drink and took another mouthful. She was still staring out of the window, but her gaze had hardened. "He shouldn't be back there," she said again.

There was a pause. Travis stirred the soup a bit more, picked up his bread roll and tore it into very small fragments on the plate. "You're probably right," he admitted at last, "but it's a done deal now. He made his decision, he obviously had his reasons. He's a grown man, Hoshi. He didn't have to consult any of us about it."

"He made a mistake!" she said fiercely. "And he's going to regret it for the rest of his life!"

"Slow down. Keep your voice down." He put a calming hand on hers, which had clenched into a fist. "Look at this from his point of view. Think about that ship. Maybe he thinks he's gone as far as he can with _Enterprise._ Maybe he just wants a new challenge. She's a beauty, and she needs someone who has the kind of experience he has."

" _Enterprise_ needs someone with that kind of experience," she flashed back. "Think of the times he saved our asses out there! You don't think when we go back out there we're never going to need someone with that kind of talent?"

"Kelby trained under him from the start," protested Travis, though the note of his voice suggested that he wasn't wholly convinced himself.

"What Trip has, you can't train into anybody. And besides, this isn't about the ship." The linguist narrowed her eyes and stared across at the window as though still seeing _Columbia_ through it _._

He'd picked up his soup spoon again, but immediately set it down at this, its contents untasted. "It isn't?"

"Of course not." She glanced around, looked sideways at him and lowered her voice still further. "You mean you didn't know?"

"What didn't I know?"

His gaze was genuinely perplexed, and despite the gravity of the situation she couldn't help a small, smug smile as she leaned over and whispered, _"He's sweet on T'Pol."_

"HE IS? – I mean, _he is?"_ His eyes were like saucers, and it was with an obvious effort that he moderated his voice to match hers. "He talked to you about it?"

"Of course not." Hoshi tutted at his obtuseness. "And she knows he is. You just had to watch them. It was obvious."

"Well. As I spend most of the time at the helm, I don't get as much chance to people-watch as you do." His gaze became abstracted as he evidently worked back over his memories in the effort to find any clues that he might have missed. "I know she turned up late for the party this afternoon."

"She wasn't going to come to it at all till the captain ordered her to," she told him flatly. "Kept making excuses. In the end the captain pretty well told her if she didn't come down on her own he was going to go up and carry her down."

"You heard him saying THAT?"

"Well. It was something along those lines. And he didn't know anyone could hear him. He went outside, down the corridor, and I'd offered to fetch some more glasses out of storage. I was in the next corridor, just around the junction. He didn't know I was there." She pinkened slightly at the memory. "So of course she came."

"I noticed she hardly spoke a word to Trip." He stirred his rapidly cooling soup reflectively. "I didn't think much of it. Just thought it was her being Vulcan. Not getting into the emotional stuff."

"She may be Vulcan. _Trip_ sure isn't. But you'd never have known it from the way he said goodbye to her." Her face took on a look of sadness as she remembered the party coming from an end. "He hugged everybody. Jonathan. Malcolm. You. Even some of his engineers. But T'Pol ... he just shook hands with her and said 'Take care of yourself'." The sadness colored her smile as she continued. "And he kissed every woman on the ship at that party. Except T'Pol. And she didn't watch one of them. She just looked straight out the window."

"Perhaps she wasn't that interested," he suggested. "'Specially if she didn't want to be there in the first place. Kissing's hardly her sort of thing."

His companion shook her head. "She was interested all right. I thought Malcolm was going to put her in an arm lock."

For the second time a spoonful of soup went back into the bowl. "Now you've lost me."

"Malcolm knows." She smiled faintly. "He notices everything. And he was right beside T'Pol all the time. I bet as soon as he saw what Trip was doing he was getting his moves planned out if she lost it."

Travis grinned. "I know he looked a bit horrified when Trip pretended he was going to kiss him as well."

Hoshi gurgled at the memory. The whole mess hall had exploded with laughter, the kind that comes from relief at a genuine moment of gaiety in an afternoon of utterly forced good cheer.

Clearly realizing that he had to make inroads if his supper was to be consumed while it was still edible, the helmsman picked up his spoon again and actually put it to use. After a minute or two, however, he put it down yet again. "So that was why," he said slowly.

"That was why what?" She looked at him curiously over the rim of her cup.

"I took him over to the _Columbia._ " He shrugged. "It just seemed like a good idea. A last 'trip' in the shuttle."

She groaned at the pun, but he shook his head and continued. "And when we were doing the pre-flight checks I saw him staring up at the control booth, so I looked up, too. And she was there. Just ... looking at him." He hesitated. "I thought he might want to say something to her, but he just looked away and said, 'Can we get this thing fired up? I've got a ship to go to.'"

"And she didn't try to contact you or anything?"

"Not a word. She just gave him this little 'wave'. Not that Vulcan thing she does. A human one, but like she didn't know how to do it properly." His hand made a small, uncertain movement. "But he wasn't looking by then. Then she just turned and walked out."

She set her cup down and stared bleakly across at the _Columbia_ again. "So she's in love with him, too. It's even worse than I thought."

"Looks like it." He sighed. "But I guess he doesn't know that. Or he wouldn't have left."

"He doesn't know it _yet._ "

It took about ten seconds for the significance of that remark to sink in. And then he gasped. "Hoshi – !"

"You'd rather just sit back and do nothing?" she said, even more fiercely.

"Well, no, but ... _Columbia_ ... Captain Hernandez ...!"

"Oh, they're not going anywhere for a while. The launch won't be for another couple of days, he won't want any distractions till it's all set up and running. But after that ... well, after that, all bets are off."


	5. Chapter 5: Archer

_Where did it go wrong?_

Captain Jonathan Archer stood immobile beside the viewing port in his room, staring out of it at the streaking stars _._

Although the surface levels of his mind were still consumed with fear and anger for his kidnapped medical officer, and determination that they were going to find him and get him back whatever it took, whenever he stopped concentrating for a minute the underlying pain and bewilderment over another issue entirely came surging back up and took him by the throat.

 _Trip had left_ Enterprise.

He still couldn't believe it had happened so quickly.

All those years of friendship, and he hadn't seen it coming. Or maybe the signs had been there for a long time, and he just hadn't been looking for them. Maybe he'd just got complacent.

Complacency wasn't a healthy trait in a starship captain.

He was trying – hard – to be glad for Erika. She deserved her command, and she deserved to have a darned good chief engineer; the best in Starfleet, as he had cause to know. But when they'd met up there had been a constraint between them that hadn't been there before, and he knew that she was aware of it, and understood its cause. She was far too smart to pass up the gift that had landed so unexpectedly in her lap; if she didn't snap up Trip's services, someone else would. Nevertheless, she had to understand that both on a personal and a professional level, his friend's abrupt request for a transfer had to hurt like hell.

Which it had. And still did.

Courtesy had prevented her from probing, but her bright gaze had contained curiosity. His loss was her great gain, and when he'd spoken of Trip he'd paid scrupulous tribute to the man's many gifts. Unfortunately, she'd known him for a very long time as well. She knew that for years Trip had been like a younger brother to him, would hear perfectly clearly the things he didn't say, couldn't bring himself to say.

He turned away from the window and sighed deeply. Porthos was curled up on his bed, watching him with anxious eyes; the dog's tail wagged tentatively. Even he knew something was very wrong.

Archer sat down beside his pet and patted his head. "You miss him too, buddy." A low whine answered him, and Porthos licked his wrist gently.

His eye fell on the last disc Trip had brought him – the one with the water polo final on it. Stanford vs. Cal. They'd never got around to watching it. Now they never would. And that was Trip's fault. He was the one who'd jumped ship without even giving him a single goddamn reason why.

Anger was far too close to the surface. It was easier to cope with anger than pain.

Anger seemed to be his first response to everything these days. He looked back in disbelief to the man who'd set out on this voyage of discovery like a Boy Scout, secure in the belief that it was all going to be one huge great adventure and his good intentions would be the key to every door.

No wonder Soval had been skeptical of his chances. The wonder was that the Vulcans hadn't sabotaged the ship to prevent him from leaving. Pity was probably among the emotions they didn't allow themselves, but even Vulcans would have seen the potential for enormous waste and loss of life among the crew whom he'd wantonly endangered on so many occasions. He'd turned a deaf ear to good advice from his first officer when it ran counter to his 'gut feelings', and called his tactical officer 'paranoid' when he tried to bring him to a proper respect for the risks they ran. Hell, when he looked back over some of their adventures he was tempted to agree with the old adage that 'God guards fools,' for there didn't seem much other reason for the ship to be still in one piece.

He'd taken on the mission to find the Xindi weapon, and he'd succeeded – but at a cost. When he looked into a mirror now, he didn't much care for the man who looked back at him. Perhaps that was some of the reason why Trip had decided to ship out. The man Trip had been friends with for all those years had been left behind somewhere in the Expanse. At the time, the appalling responsibility had crowded out everything but the compulsion to succeed, but the cost had been high. Very high. He had lost something he was never likely to get back as long as he lived: his integrity. Little enough, admittedly, in comparison to all the members of his crew who'd lost their lives, and whose deaths weighed on him daily, but the hollow title of 'hero' that he'd once thought the pinnacle of human ambition was nothing but a mockery to him now.

 _Trip. Why? Why the hell did you have to do this? You didn't even give me a goddamn reason. Not even right at the end. Was there something I didn't say, something I didn't do? Something I didn't see, that I should have done? You never acted this way before. If you had something to say you just went ahead and said it. I just don't understand why you've done this, why you wouldn't tell me the truth. You just gave me that bullshit about_ Columbia _needing you more than we do. Like you thought I'd buy that, when you couldn't even look me in the eye when you came out with it! They asked you twice before and you refused, so what changed your mind?_

 _Buddy, whatever I did, or whatever the problem was, why couldn't you tell me what was wrong? Have I turned into a monster or something? What the hell happened to our friendship? Is that all it was worth?_

He should get out of here. It was time to get to the bridge, make sure that everything would be ready to go when they caught up with that Rigelian freighter. Maybe – though such thoughts were probably unworthy of a Starfleet officer – kicking some ass would vent at least some of his feelings. T'Pol would be up there already, though he'd noticed that she'd been very silent since they'd left Spacedock. His own pain and frustration had made him short-tempered with her over the excuses she kept finding not to turn up at Trip's farewell party; okay, her relationship with the chief engineer had been difficult at times, but he'd thought they had worked out a decent accord just lately and he couldn't understand why she couldn't just turn up and make the appropriate noises, however insincere they might be. Hell, it wasn't as though _he_ was enjoying it. When an officer left, the rest of the command staff had a duty to show up, whether they liked it or not. Afterwards she'd turned into the iceberg Vulcan she'd been at the outset of their first mission, so he'd left her to it; 'sulking' was probably a human trait, but she sure as hell wasn't her normal self. At another time he might have tried to get her to talk, to mend fences with her, but just then he'd been too tired and heartsick to make the effort.

He turned his head briefly and stared at the computer on his desk. He remembered dictating to it his formal consent to the transfer request. Every word of it had seemed to add to the utter unreality of the situation: Trip was leaving _Enterprise._ Even at the farewell party – that interminable, unbearable charade of a party – he'd still had the dreamlike feeling that it was all happening to somebody else, that sooner or later everyone was going to burst out laughing and it would all turn out to be one big elaborate hoax.

Well, although everybody had indeed burst out laughing at Trip's playful pretense of kissing Malcolm by mistake, that had been the only genuine laugh of the occasion. The rest of it wasn't a hoax at all. It had played out right to the end, and he'd eventually found himself staring at the viewscreen as the shuttle carried his chief engineer away to a new ship and a new captain, still without the faintest idea what had happened to set any of this in motion. His best buddy had upped and left him without a word of explanation. And just at that minute he'd have traded a fortune in liquid platinum for the answer to the single question that was going round and round and round inside his head.

 _Why?  
_


	6. Chapter 6: Tucker

" _Enterprise_ , we're in position."

Trip heard his captain's voice over the comm, but he wouldn't have needed it. He'd felt the judder of the warp fields merging as the ships closed. The square opening on the belly of the ship where he stood, that moments ago had been filled with nothing but the streaks of light outside _Columbia_ 's warp field, was now filled with the corresponding square in the belly of his old ship. Fifty meters away, and holding.

Fifty meters. Say it quickly and it tripped off the tongue easily enough.

Fifty meters was a whole lot longer than it sounded when every millimeter of it was stretched between two starships travelling at warp five. Warp five. 125 times light speed. Hey. It's just numbers, right?

Right.

He peered down with extreme care, seeing the similarly suited figure in the opposite launch bay making last minute adjustments to the grappler settings. He had no doubts about Malcolm's ability to aim and fire with pinpoint precision, but the results depended to some extent on the ships maintaining their relative positions with absolute steadiness. A tremor at the wrong second could have deadly consequences. He didn't want to find out what it felt like to have the grappler claws smashing into his helmet faceplate instead of the launch bay ceiling.

 _"Columbia, I'm launching the tether."_ Lieutenant Reed's voice now, the familiar English accent sounding reassuringly calm. He didn't waste time after the announcement; the words were hardly out of his mouth before the grappler head hurtled cleanly into the launch bay and crashed into the ceiling, where the claws sank into the metal and held.

"Nice shootin', Malcolm." Trip reached out and clipped his safety harness to the taut metal tether line which was within his reach. Captain Hernandez gave him permission to leave the ship. Her suggestion that he didn't linger was completely unnecessary; this maneuver was so incredibly dangerous that nobody short of a lunatic would regard it as something to dawdle over.

He'd told her he'd done it before. 'Piece of cake.'

Amazing, the lies you find yourself telling when your ship's in mortal danger and you're the only one who can save everyone on board. Including the woman you love…

 _Hell, don't think. Just move._

Hand over hand. _Columbia_ was running inverted, so as soon as he was out of the bay doors he righted himself in relation to _Enterprise_. It was easier to climb upwards; less disorienting.

No amount of simulations could recreate the reality of being suspended between two hurtling starships, cocooned in a merged warp field. He could see the shimmer of light along the plating, could feel the thrum of power through the tether under his gloved hands. The field itself was invisible, but he could feel the charge from it running over his skin, like the prickle of static electricity.

For all the need for haste, he couldn't help pausing to take one quick glance around as he reached half way. It was a view he'd never expected to get, and he wasn't going to miss it. "Never thought I'd see the stars like this," he remarked.

The observation didn't go down too well with his captain. Having got hold of him, Erika Hernandez was in no mood to lose him for the sake of a bit of sightseeing. "Eyes on the cable, Commander." Her voice came drily through his helmet comm. "I need you back here in one piece."

"You're doing fine, Trip." That was Malcolm, leaning out beside the grappler mechanism to watch his progress. For all the reassurance, however, the strain in the lieutenant's voice was palpable.

He resumed the climb. In the virtually zero gravity of the warp field it wasn't physically demanding, but the EV suit was bulky and awkward to move in under these conditions. And moments later the tether shook violently, so that he had to clutch at it quickly.

He glanced upwards at _Enterprise._ If he wasn't mistaken, the distance had gotten longer. The ships had moved further apart. The tether line could only stretch a little further; sixty meters was its limit. And in order to merge the warp fields the two starships had to stay in this proximity. Every meter they drifted added to the danger that the fields would shear, and if that happened he was toast. "Don't mean to be a pest, but could someone tell me what's goin' on?" he demanded.

"You're almost here, Trip. Keep going." Malcolm was still leaning out alongside the grappler line; the way he kept glancing upwards at the straining mechanism above him wasn't exactly reassuring.

 _Hell, like I'm gonna stop and take pictures._ The tether line shuddered again. Through the open comm he could hear Malcolm's breathing starting to get uneven. It wasn't a reassuring sound.

Hand over hand. Surely the distance had lengthened again. The metal under his hand was thrumming with the strain. It had never been built to hold two starships together. _Travis, for God's sake hold her still or I'll come back and haunt ya._ Though maybe it wasn't _Enterprise_ having the problem _._ Maybe it was _Columbia._ Shouldn't be. He'd gone over all the systems…. He found himself trying to assess the probabilities, trying to fill the endless seconds as he pulled himself towards the launch bay and safety.

Hand over hand. Here was the bay doorway. Safety was agonizingly close, but the shifting metal cable under his hands was giving terrifying little jolts as though something was tearing loose. "The tether's at its limit! Hurry up!" He could hear the frantic note in Reed's voice; the lieutenant was leaning out so far that he seemed in danger of tipping forward through the gap in the safety rails where he stood.

His brain knew that it couldn't be more than an extra ten meters or the grapple would have given way. It _felt_ like an extra ten kilometers.

"Almost there!"

He hadn't the breath to reply. He could feel the vibration of rending metal even through his gloves now, though any sound it made was swallowed by the vacuum in the launch bay. The grappler mechanism was directly above him. It was being pulled off its mountings. If it gave now it would whip him out of the bay, possibly crushing him to death in the process. Assuming he was still alive by the time he left the warp field, he'd find out what 125 times light speed felt like when you were falling out of it.

He really, really didn't want to.

At last, within hand's reach. Desperately reaching hands seized him, and somehow he was pulled against the rail while Malcolm fumbled with the hook still attaching him to that groaning, trembling grappler that was being torn further and further off the ceiling.

The last bolts were giving way.

"Trip!" Even as Malcolm shouted out and dragged him forward, he felt the tether line pull through the open hook, and got himself somehow through the gap in the railing just in time as the mechanism ripped itself completely free and plunged through the bay doors. Its weight tore the claws loose from _Columbia,_ too, and the whole mechanism hurtled astern, to be lost in a split second as it left the warp field.

"Permission to come aboard?" he panted.

Reed grinned wryly and turned away to the intercom. "Bridge, I have him." The lieutenant's face was beaded with sweat.

"You all right, Trip?" Jon's voice through the intercom. The sensation of a dislocation in his universe being set right again, though he hadn't time to concentrate on that now. He had the rescue plans ready, desperate as they were, but desperate situations…. They were all out of options bar this one. He was under no illusions. If this went wrong not only _Enterprise_ was at risk. At this proximity, _Columbia_ was in deadly danger; a warp core breach would take out both ships. Erika understood that. She was entrusting him with the lives of her crew too.

He explained it quickly to the captain listening on the bridge, overriding the objections as the launch bay was sealed and repressurized and he and Malcolm stripped off their EV suits.

Out into the corridor. Two MACOs taking Malcolm to the brig, an event that he could only apprehend with a part of his consciousness because almost all of it was listening to the sounds of the engines, _his_ engines, on _his_ ship, sick and straining and near to collapse.

 _His engines._ T'Pol in Engineering, but even for her there was no time for more than the most fleeting sensation of gladness as another piece of the dislocation mended itself. Two minutes. It couldn't be done. A little over fifty meters away _Columbia_ threw all her available extra power into her warp field, spreading it protectively around _Enterprise_.

 _Relay, engine shutdown. Orders: injectors, relays! Mother boards. "Forty seconds." Orders: matrix! "We're losing the field." "You've got fifteen seconds, Trip." Orders: containment, antimatter stream! "Commander!" "Four, three, two!"_

Power. Blessed, blessed power. The ship shuddered underneath him as the nacelles lit up and the warp field bloomed with both ships under power again. A restart in under two minutes.

He was trembling and the palms of his hands were wet with sweat. Only now that he'd achieved it did he fully realize that technically it couldn't be done, except that at the time he hadn't had any choice but to do it.

He turned his head and looked at T'Pol. Even she looked a bit shaken. Or perhaps that was only his imagination. And perhaps it was only his imagination too that she was looking at him … differently. As though she really was glad, and not just for the fact that he'd saved all their lives. Glad to see him again. Surely that sense of a rift in the universe healing up couldn't be all his own? He remembered Hoshi's chatty messages; the daily arrivals in his inbox had kept him in touch with his old ship as though he'd still been walking down the corridors. Even when he'd been so tired after pulling sixteen-hour shifts that he'd wanted no more than to fall into bed and pass out he'd still read them, sitting in his quarters with his head propped up on one hand to keep it from dropping on to the desk. She had a gift for images that brought back the _Enterprise_ so clearly. And the one that had stood out from all the other details for him had been that of T'Pol, sitting alone in the mess hall, not even studying a data PADD as she ate her plomeek soup, but staring dully out of the observation ports. _I guess she misses having you to argue with_ , Hoshi had written innocently.

The care of his engines had to come first. He got through that with Jon. Get the ship down to impulse for a while, give them a rest and a checkover. Then get the other things sorted out – Phlox, kidnapped? Malcolm, in the brig? Jeez, he couldn't take his eye off this ship for a day without it going to hell in a hand basket. But sooner or later, and at a time of his choice when they darn well wouldn't be interrupted, he and T'Pol were going to have a Conversation.

Though it wouldn't be too soon. He was going to check out the ground first before he made a move. See what a certain Vulcan of his acquaintance had to say for herself once the dust settled. Any cards he held were going to stay _very_ close to his chest for a while.

Oh, yes.

And this time, he was going to find out once and for all what was going on.


	7. Chapter 7: T'Pol

'Not that big a deal.'

Vulcans don't seethe.

Vulcans. Do. Not. Seethe.

So Sub-Commander T'Pol was therefore not seething when she walked to the mess hall after watching Commander Tucker's blue-clad back disappear jauntily down the corridor after he'd disposed of their 'relationship' with those five words that reduced to an utter triviality the reasons why he'd caused absolute chaos among two starships' personnel. Not to mention in her mind. And, on that one unforgettable occasion, in regions further south.

She selected a salad as usual, and sat down with it at a vacant table. For some reason the crack of the stick of celery as it snapped in half was deeply satisfying. Likewise the breadstick. She didn't care for them all that much, but there were several on her plate. She dug her fork into her tomato with such inappropriate force that the prongs went straight through it and skidded on the plate beneath it with a shriek.

'Three days ago.' He'd known for _three days!_

Another stick of celery went the way of the first.

'Say that you want me to come back.' _After he'd already told Captain Hernandez three days ago that he'd changed his mind!_

The danger to _Enterprise_ several days ago as the ship went in search of the kidnapped Doctor Phlox had brought _Columbia_ speeding in pursuit. Klingons had boarded _Enterprise_ and loaded sub-routines into the computer that would have resulted in an overload to the warp core, but they hadn't bargained for the sister-ship new out of Spacedock, which had raced to the rescue.

From her place in Engineering she'd waited with a wildly-beating heart while Trip had made that desperate and dangerous traverse between his new ship and his old one. He'd been the only man with the expertise to save the _Enterprise_ in the bare few minutes they had left before the warp core breached. His safety and their lives had depended on a man who had been discovered to be a traitor, whose motives were a mystery and who had been released from the brig solely because he was the only man on board who had trained in the maneuver. Lieutenant Reed had been Trip's friend, or at least he had seemed to be; but everything they had ever believed about him had now been called into question, and she had sensed the captain's rage and despair that he had to place the very survival of his ship into a pair of hands he could no longer trust.

In this at least the lieutenant had not failed them. Thanks to the superb flying of the two helmsmen, the accuracy of the tactical officer's shooting and, most of all, to the insane courage of the man who had actually made that crossing, the situation had been resolved. The Klingon sub-routines and the subsequent purging had caused considerable disruption to the ship's systems, however, and Captain Hernandez had generously agreed to lend her chief engineer back to his old ship until the repairs had been effected to his satisfaction. Trip could not have been left in any doubt about how much he had been missed, to judge by how warmly he was welcomed back; once the crisis had been resolved he had gone to the brig to speak to Lieutenant Reed, who had been returned to it once his part in events was over, but any gladness the lieutenant might have felt at the wanderer's return was necessarily muted by the circumstances. Superficially, at least, the surveillance recordings provided no evidence of any emotional attachment between them other than as the friends she had always thought them to be.

After that, the Commander had slotted back into his own place as though he had never left it. Understandably this had caused some friction between himself and Lieutenant Kelby, whose promotion was now called into question, but that was an issue which Tucker was perfectly capable of resolving by himself.

Knowing that his return was temporary, she'd had to exercise all the self-control of which she was capable to stop her eyes from following him every moment they were in the same room, to keep herself from storing up every word and every glance as food for a famished future.

Logic dictated that there was no evidence for the existence of a Deity, but at times she'd even found herself wishing that some such entity actually existed. It would have been a comfort to have been able to pray that the return to his own ship, his own staff, his friends ( _and her,_ her mind whispered guiltily) might work a miracle, might change his mind. At times during the past she'd heard others make reference to his obstinacy. Would he be blind enough, angry enough, hurt enough, to hold his course, even if he realized that he'd made a terrible mistake?

For it _was_ a mistake. The existence of the bond proved that. Whether he understood it or not, whether he liked it or not, whether he wanted it or not, there was a tie between them that could not be dissolved without enormous trauma to both of them. She'd wanted to talk to him about it, to explain what had happened, but events had conspired to prevent them having the opportunity for much more than the commonplaces of duty. There had been a couple of brief exchanges between them (more like the cautious preliminaries of a pair of scorpions than anything else) during which she'd first made tentative inquiries to establish whether he was feeling any effects from the mating bond, and then later explained its existence. His reaction had hardly been one of unalloyed delight. It certainly had not indicated his regarding it as something important enough to influence his plans for his future.

But the bond had had its uses – it had saved him from being overcome by the pheromones secreted by the Orion women whom the captain had (with arrant foolishness, in her opinion) brought on board ship. No doubt Captain Archer had indeed had a duty to investigate an offer that might – if it had proved to be true – been of huge benefit to Starfleet. But his professed inability to refuse the gift of what had to all intents and purposes been three scantily-clad slave girls, had rung more than a little hollow. She had also been astonished that Lieutenant Reed, who had been released from his captivity and restored to duty by that time, and who could usually be relied upon to have more sense in matters of security, had not at least made representations on the wisdom of making their 'guests' change into less provocative attire.

Subsequent events had proved that the folly of both men had a physiological cause; they were not to blame for their inability to resist the pheromones that had wreaked havoc with every man on the ship – except Trip. Nevertheless, she had been quite unable to suppress a twinge of proprietorial pride in the way her bond-mate at least had retained his senses. Had it not been entirely inappropriate, she would actually have applauded when he shot the lieutenant, the captain, and Ensign Mayweather in a laudably cool and professional manner, a manner of which Lieutenant Reed would probably have approved rather more had he not personally been one of the recipients.

Altogether the entire affair had proved that Trip's restored presence on board was of vital importance to the continued wellbeing and safety of the ship. That was both logical and obvious. At least, it was to her. Until the effects of the pheromones wore off, she could place little reliance upon Captain Archer's good sense (and she was at a loss to understand why he had ever approved the transfer in the first place, though his 'good sense' in even ordinary circumstances had never been wholly reliable). Absurdities such as pride, of which he had an abundance, might prevent Archer from coming to that self-evident conclusion, or even from acting upon it if he did. As the days passed, and no move was made to return Trip to his new ship, her anxiety had mounted daily.

And now this.

 _Three days!_

Doubtless no general announcement had been made because the official transfer procedure had yet to be completed, but now she came to think carefully, for the past day or two the captain had borne a certain air of what she could only describe as intense, if secret, smug self-satisfaction. She'd put it down to his sudden acquisition of three sexually attractive, available and extremely willing female 'guests', but it seemed that that hadn't been his only reason. Possibly this tied in with his restoration of Lieutenant Reed to his post; no amount of jubilation over a prodigal Trip's return would have induced him to offer a general amnesty, but he must have satisfied himself that the lieutenant's conduct had not been as heinous as it had appeared, and that henceforward the Englishman would give him his unconditional loyalty. He now had his command staff restored, the ship (as he saw it) set to rights, the Orion saboteurs disposed of and the unpleasantnesses of the past couple of weeks consigned to history.

But ... _three days!_

The sub-commander came back to herself and found that her plate was a sea of snapped breadsticks and celery.

THREE DAYS!

But Vulcans don't seethe.

Of course they don't.

So she wasn't. **  
**


	8. Chapter 8: Tucker

A guy had to be gracious in victory.

Trip waited until he rounded the corner of the corridor before he balled his fist and punched the air.

 _"YES!"_

He'd done it.

He'd got her to admit it at last.

She wanted him back.

And not only that; he'd got her to kiss him – kiss him _passionately._ And out in the open, too – in the corridor, where anybody might come upon them.

 _T'Pol, you are so-o-o outed!_

He was back on his ship, where he belonged. Back with his friends. Even Captain Hernandez had accepted his about-turn with a wry smile that wasn't wholly surprised; he suspected she'd never completely believed in his commitment to the transfer, but been glad enough to take advantage of his temporary presence. He'd brought her ship's engines up to excellent operating order, and trained her crew at least part way up to the standards they'd need to be to give their captain the service they should. He'd caused a whole mess of trouble, but he'd paid his dues in that respect; _Columbia_ was now up on a par with _Enterprise_. And if she was short of a chief engineer, he had one to hand who'd been cheated of the promotion he'd temporarily enjoyed. Kelby would have coped with most things fate could have thrown at a ship; it hadn't been his fault that nobody had ever done a cold start on a warp engine at maximum while it was being carried by another ship's warp field. Technically it shouldn't have been possible to do it at all, but at least now he'd proved it could be done. If his return was really too much for Kelby to bear, the transfer might be the solution to a problem on both sides, but that was for the future.

He had a very quick shower indeed, changed his clothes and headed for the Mess, with the intention of catching a cup of coffee and perhaps (if luck favored him) a piece of pecan pie to load his sugar levels before he went down to Engineering and made sure the repairs were under way to the sabotage that Kelby had been induced to inflict. Just as he reached the door, Hoshi walked out; they nearly bumped into one another, and hung on for a moment in laughing mutual apology. He still hadn't gotten around to thanking the ship's communications officer properly for keeping in touch with him when he'd left the ship. But for that mention of T'Pol alone in the mess, he might have succeeded in convincing himself that he'd done the right thing in leaving.

For all his exhaustion, he'd had trouble sleeping the night he'd read that message. He could feel the Vulcan's loneliness and grief as a dull, constant ache in the back of his mind, the mirror to his own. He'd been trying to ignore it, to smother it with the pressures of work – the same useless remedy that he was applying to his own pain, and with about as much success. Failing that, he'd had no alternative but to hope that time would be the healer for this wound too, as it is for so many others. But that image of T'Pol sitting alone in the mess had gnawed its way through his fledgling coping strategies, breaking them apart and revealing them for the sham they were. He shouldn't _be_ apart from her. He didn't _want_ to be apart from her. He didn't belong on _Columbia_ , he never had and he never would.

And then, as though Fate had intervened personally in the matter, Captain Hernandez had received that desperate appeal for help that only he could give. He'd paced like a caged tiger as the _Columbia_ hurtled in pursuit, heading for the intercept co-ordinates; the relief when _Enterprise_ finally appeared on the viewscreen, still in one piece, had been indescribable. He'd never even thought of refusing to attempt the ship-to-ship traverse; Malcolm would keep him safe. That was Malcolm's _job._ And once on board, he could do _his_ job, and put his engines back into order. Hell, he couldn't up and leave for a couple of days without them messing up his precious charges. What had he ever been thinking of, to think they could cope without him?

Events had certainly proved that they wouldn't have coped very easily without him after the cap'n brought those three Orion babes on board. Eye candy they might have been, but trouble they certainly had been – and fatal for the cap'n they could easily have been, though the female members of the crew had been less badly affected by the Orion pheromones and might well have mounted a fight-back on their own account even without a pheromone-resistant Trip to head up the resistance. Still, the fact that he hadn't been affected at all had been thanks to the bond. And it wasn't every day that you got to shoot your captain _and_ two of your fellow officers in the line of duty, and one of those the ship's tactical officer in person. Wasn't he going to pull Malcolm's leg about _that_ for ever... and now he was back on the _Enterprise_ for good _,_ he could do so from sunup to sundown. Give it a week, and he'd have the prickly Brit threatening to shoot him out the nearest airlock to shut him up about it. Hell, if he did a good enough job he might manage it in less than that! He couldn't wait to start.

And best of all, he was going to get this sorted out with T'Pol. She could pretend all she liked now, her cover was blown. She'd blown it wide open back there in the corridor! The presence in the back of his mind was vibrating with indignation at the way she'd been duped. Indignation ... and grudging admiration ... and, yes, relief. Relief that he was back on board; that something that had gone wrong was right at last. The world had tilted back on its axis for both of them.

They were going to have to talk this out. Have a long, serious talk, and as soon as they could arrange it. Sex was one thing – and the sex had been glorious, mind-blowing, unforgettable – but it hadn't been just the loss of any prospect of a repeat performance that had sent him flying off the ship. He wanted _all_ of her, her logic and her brilliant mind and her obstinacy and her Vulcan ways and her gorgeous body and her cute pointed ears and her problems with emotions; he wanted the lot. And it seemed that she wanted him too, incredible and extraordinary and marvelous as that discovery was.

She'd proved that to him beyond any doubt, and there was no going back.

It wasn't going to be easy. Exultation didn't blind him to the problems that lay in their path. Their cultures, and to some extent their natures, were in many respects diametrically opposed to one another. If they were to have a relationship, it wouldn't be a walk in the park; any roses that might be strewn in their path would come with some pretty sharp thorns attached. But that it would be worth the struggle, he never doubted for a moment.

He'd paused for a moment while these memories went through his mind. Then with a smile he pushed the mess door command button. The doors hissed open.

She was sitting facing the door. Her eyes came up and met his as though she'd known he was coming in at precisely that second. Perhaps she had known.

The mess hall was crowded. You never knew who might be looking; certain standards of behaviour were expected of Starfleet officers. It wasn't appropriate for him to stop and stand staring in the doorway, though right at that moment that was what he wanted to do, as feeling surged through the bond.

He might have got himself a coffee, and perhaps it had been black, and possibly he'd remembered to put sugar in it; he was never certain afterwards what sort of pie he'd eaten. He'd sat at the table with her, and something had crossed his mind about the state of what remained of her salad, but that didn't seem important enough to mention or even remember. He was too busy feeling that the world was a marvelous place to be in right now, sitting across from her and saying nothing much because it was too public a place, but they'd find somewhere later on where it could be just the two of them and everything could be said that needed to be.

She didn't say much either, that he noticed, because yes, it was a public place and anybody could be listening. Nevertheless when she put her hand out to place her napkin down between them he just happened to do the very same thing, and just for a second their fingers touched.

And lingered.

Damn, but he loved it here!

 **THE END**


End file.
